This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Prices for a Charlie's Burgers dinner have risen steadily since the underground supper club began serving secret dinners in 2009. Guests at a January dinner paid $155 for a meal that included roasted cricket canapés. (Sara Kuntz photo)

There’s a perceived cachet in having attended a dinner at underground supper club Charlie’s Burgers. Not since StarKist Tuna’s mascot has a fictitious Charlie so confounded the line between good taste and tasting good.

Since the club’s first dinner in early 2009, the price of the event has steadily risen. A March 2009 dinner at The Department gallery cost $110. There was only a slight increase for Jonathan Gushue’s $115 meal on Oct. 26, 2009. The all-insect menu by Matt Binkley and Jeff Stewart on Jan. 24, 2010 jumped to $155. Then for Jamie Kennedy’s meal in March, it was $180, an amount you’d find difficult to spend at his restaurant, where you can make a reservation without qualifying through an online questionnaire. After climbing to $190 for Matt DeMille’s horse-themed dinner last month, Mr. Burger has gone international, with a price to match.

The latest offering is a pair of meals, on July 30 and 31 in London and Paris, for a total cost of $990.

While exceptions might be made on a case-by-case basis, the meals are a package deal. Usually, the venues are a surprise, revealed at the last-minute. Eighteen to 22 diners will attend what’s billed as London Calling and The French Connection: customized meals by celebrated chefs Fergus Henderson and Laurent Delarbre at St. John Restaurant in London and La Tour D’Argent in Paris.

Article Continued Below

“I chose these restaurants based on the fact that they are both great expressions of a specific culinary style,” says Charlie by email. “St. John is a great expression of the nouveau British cuisine and La Tour D’Argent is a perfect expression of the long-standing French culinary traditions.”

The meals necessitate the purchase of multiple plane tickets and hotel rooms.

“If you are already all the way over there, one meal seems like a bit of tease, no?” says Charlie. “The original idea also included a third meal in Spain, but I ran into timing issues.”

It would seem that attendance at Charlie’s Burgers, once a marker of urban dining street cred, has become a sport of the wealthy.

“Not at all,” says Charlie. “Some of the initial responses I have received are from CB members I know well and they are not super affluent people. Just diehard eaters.” He expects the guests to be a mix of Canadians and Europeans. “The first people to respond were London CB members. They were also begging to bring more of their friends to the dinners.”

A consistent theme of correspondence with Charlie is the rising ticket price for his underground dinners.

“When you tell a chef to go crazy and prepare anything he/she wants it often results in the finest ingredients available,” Charlie wrote last September. Mindful of costs, he promised to design events at a “much lower price point.”

He had been nervous about the insect dinner with unknown chefs and a $155 sticker cost. “But boundaries are made to be pushed.”

Once invitations were sent for that meal, Charlie received roughly 500 replies for 30 seats at the dining table.

At this latest, wig-flipping inflation, Charlie maintains the gourmand’s interest above all else.

“Optically it seems like the price has gone up for no reason.”

That’s not the case, he says. “Quality of ingredients has increased, number of courses has increased and calibre of wines has also increased.” Previous dinners have included extras such as take away dessert boxes, preserves by chefs and bathrooms stocked with beer, next to the hand sanitizer.

“I will roll out some cheaper priced menus,” Charlie promises.

He will only say that one idea involves burgers. “Yes, Charlie Burger will be doing a burger event. I said too much already.”

Delivered dailyThe Morning Headlines Newsletter

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com